


shed the days like skin

by doublelead



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yakuza, M/M, Slice of Life, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 04:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11959392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublelead/pseuds/doublelead
Summary: The moment the dirt under Mizutani’s shoes left smears in his welcome mat, Room 219 Chateau Osmanthus risks becomnig a potential crime scene. Yuuto swallows, tries not to think of blood splatters staining his pot of poppies, Shouji’s fingers brushing against a cold nape of a body on the parqueted floor.





	shed the days like skin

**Author's Note:**

> this year's birthday fic for [bakpaocoklat](http://bakpaocoklat.tumblr.com/) last uh, November LOL that I've written a while back!!

“I hope you’re not planning on bleeding on my couch,” Yuuto says, ladles the next morning’s _misoshiru_ into a tasting saucer. He takes a sip, continues to stir the pot without turning away from the stove. Not many people comes to his little apartment, tucked away in the suburbs of Setagaya near midnight. Absent-mindedly reaching for an extra bowl from the overhead cupboards, Yuuto moves to portion dinner for the heavy footsteps from his _genkan_ , the weight leaning against the worn-out wooden door frame across the kitchen bar counter. This should be a lot less usual for him. He shouldn’t readily accept a shadow of cityscape dangers into his old two-story apartment building, high-end leather shoes that doesn’t belong in his humble 1LDK room.

“Are you okay with tomato in your _misoshiru_ , Shouji? It’s leftover day, so.” It’s warm, comforting, everything Shouji needs, everything Yuuto needs to force into his own home – a sense of everyday normalcy that he misses in their little arrangement.

“Shouji?” He would’ve had offered a soft chuckle by now, deflecting Yuuto’s jibes with practised ease. Gentle, a hint of self-deprecating. A little more than a slight longing for Yuuto’s crafted illusion.

He wishes, pointlessly so, that that was the case for them too.

“I’m sorry,” a voice lighter than Shouji’s – less clear syllables and more chokes of breath. “Suyama told me to come to you.”

Yuuto doesn’t stagger. He folds his thoughts small, sets it aside neat and hidden away, rummages under the sink for the first-aid kit.

 

* * *

 

His name is Mizutani Fumiki. Bright, chestnut-coloured hair messy against his forehead, the gash in his hairline bleeding into the bandage Yuuto tightly wounds around his head. He introduces himself as Shouji’s co-worker, a new recruit in their group – he couldn’t say much else. For all the ties Yuuto has to Shouji –  as much as they try to hide it, to try and keep him away from potential danger, to be used as a bargaining chip or a target of misplaced revenge – he’s still a civilian. For all the group and other rival clans know, Sakaeguchi Yuuto is an unrelated party, someone with no ties to the Underground.

And yet, the very existence of Mizutani Fumiki in his room is a contradiction. The moment the dirt under Mizutani’s shoes left smears in his welcome mat, Room 219 Chateau Osmanthus risks becomnig a potential crime scene. Yuuto swallows, tries not to think of blood splatters staining his pot of poppies, Shouji’s fingers brushing against a cold nape of a body on the parqueted floor.

“Is he alright?” Yuuto finds his voice calmer than he thought it would be, eerily level, only the slightest a trace of a shudder. “He… didn’t send you here for… you know?”

“He’s alive.” Mizutani sounds almost guilty. His shoulders tense, eyes refusing to look up from the cup of tea he holds tightly between both hands. “He’s… alive…”

He doesn’t know how to deal with this, never had the chance to directly face Shouji’s reality in the form of a young man on his couch. He doesn’t know, if the questions he wants to ask are ones he wants to know the answer to, if he should ask them at all. So he settles, with avoidance. Vague, not even a toe testing waters, steering them into familiar territories.

“Is that so.” He doesn’t like how detached he sounds, casual and unperturbed, like he’s accepting a formal house visit. A client that comes with a dime-a-dozen salaryman job, a modest white pressed dress shirt instead of a sleek black suit jacket in subtle leopard print.

“He always smells like rosemary and peppermint,” Mizutani whispers. “We’ve always joked about him having a girl waiting for him back home, but…”

“That’s enough, Mizutani-kun.” Yuuto says, standing up from his seat. He takes the serving tray from the coffee table, hugs it to his chest. His socked feet looks too bright, against the beige rug, the wood-look floor, a jarring pastel polka-dotted contrast to Mizutani’s muted argyll. He braves a look, up to dirt-marred knuckles, freshly cleaned cuts across Mizutani’s cheek. “I trust you’d be staying the night?”

“He wanted to stay with you,” Mizutani says, his voice weighted with tears he couldn’t quite hold back, this time. “He was so close, too.”

 

* * *

 

Morning filters through the windows. Like clockwork, Yuuto ties his apron on at 7:00, rolls his sleeves before opening the fridge. He remembers filing through his spice rack. He remembers cracking eggs into his pan, listens to the soft sizzle and bubbles.

He doesn’t remember when his eggs start to turn black around the edges, dazed as he is, watching the rice stalks in the field across the road.

“Suyama told me that you have a job in the city,” Mizutani’s voice seeps in, along with quiet footsteps behind him. Standing in the middle of Yuuto’s kitchen, he looks as out of place as he probably feels, in Shouji’s spare shirt and sweatpants. He shuffles his feet, awkwardness leaking out in bounds. “Aren’t you going to be late?”

“Yeah.” Yuuto looks down, glares at the burnt eggs like they’ve personally wronged him, and sighs. “Yeah.”

“I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say either,” Mizutani says, his soft voice cementing the absolute dread that Yuuto feels since last night. “And I know telling you not to worry wouldn’t be fair–”

He doesn’t want to have this conversation. “I’m sorry I couldn’t prepare breakfast for you, Mizutani-kun,” he says, looking past Mizutani and onto the clock on the opposite wall. Hooking his apron on a cupboard handle, he straightens his collar, goes over today’s work schedule, a list of groceries he has to pick up on the way home later. _Dinner for three_. “There isn’t much left in the pantry, but feel free to toast some bread. Should be some cup noodles somewhere for lunch, too.”

_Shouji likes tsukune._

Mizutani doesn’t reply, hangs his head low, twisting a loose thread from the hem of sleeves around his finger.

Yuuto smiles as best as he could, hopes to fall back in-step with his world. “Is tsukune for dinner okay? Do you have anything you don’t like?”

He thinks he sees why Shouji trusted Mizutani enough to reveal that his ‘girl back home’ isn’t a tragic maiden who held the burden of falling in love with a gang member, in the way his eyes light up, mouth hanging open at the promise of _a warm, home made meal._

“Tsukune would be great!” It’s the loudest Yuuto has heard Mizutani speak, laced with a natural sort of cheerfulness that he thinks Shouji sees everyday. “Suyama always talks about your tsukune like they’re the best in the world.”

The way it is now, in an idle conversation, it’s like Yuuto’s ‘normal’ and they’re ‘normal’ aren’t that much different – Suyama’s reality much closer grounded than he’d previously thought.

Yuuto surprises himself when he catches himself laughing. “You’ve never tried his? Mine are nowhere near his level.”

 

* * *

 

‘ _He’s alive.’_

Yuuto allows himself to really breathe, for the first time since last night. He lets out a shaky exhale, to the scenery behind the train doors. He steadies himself, his knuckles white around the straphanger, feels his heartbeat over the rumble against the train tracks under his feet.

‘ _He’s alive.’_

Rice fields and narrow housing starts to fade into concrete buildings, the further into the city he goes. Towering skyscrapers, cramped apartment blocks, the bustle and commotion of the morning Tokyo crowd.

‘ _He wanted to stay with you.’_

Shouji is somewhere in the thirteen million surrounding him now, maybe on the platform just across his, behind the yellow line, the heels of their shoes in parallel.

‘ _He was so close, too.’_

Yuuto wonders if it’s irresponsible to hope in fairytale ends. That Shouji will come home safe and free, a permanent fixture in his life from now on.

 

* * *

 

“It’s not actually as gritty as the media writes it off to be,” Mizutani says around a mouthful. They pointedly ignore the third bowl of rice set to Yuuto’s left, a thinning wisp of steam from a full cup of _houjicha._ “I mean sure, dealings and stuff, but we spend the day in the office playing shogi most of the time.”

“You guys sound like a bunch of old grandpas, honestly.” Yuuto didn’t think he wanted to know this, before. But he listens attentively, takes in the insight to a Shouji he never truly knew. The little things he didn’t have the chance to show, in the confines of Yuuto’s eight-tatami room. Shouji could apparently bench press Mihashi – their newest recruit, from what he gathered – and is apparently probably-cheating-somehow levels of godly good at mahjong. Though Yuuto gives Shouji the benefit of the doubt. Mizutani seems like the type who would absolutely be terrible at mahjong. Or any board games, for that matter.

“We might as well be!” Mizutani reaches for another tsukune, dips it in sauce before patting the excess off on his rice. “We hold a kitchen knife more than we hold an actual dagger.”

“Ah, Shouji _does_ bring back food sometimes.” He thinks back to his midnight visits, counts the number of times Shouji has actually shown up bloody and gasping for breath.

“He told me he wanted to start a restaurant, if he ever gets out.” Mizutani’s voice is quieter now, like he had meant to say that to himself instead of to Yuuto. He hesitates, chopsticks hovering a centimetre above a piece of sautéed carrot. He looks like he wanted to continue, but stops himself short, every baited breath, at each syllable cut off.

They finish dinner in silence, the third portion left untouched and covered with cling film right where Yuuto had set it.

 

* * *

 

“The boss wasn’t against it, you know.” The following Sunday, a lazy afternoon. Mizutani sits on a spot on the couch like he belongs there, knees to his chest, fingers playing with his toes. A prefectural baseball game is being covered on tv and they’ve started out keeping close score, but Mizutani mentioned off-hand that Shouji was a Tigers fan and silence follows them as they trail off. Their shadows stretch long across the floor, from the harsh sunlight. The metal clanks of ball against bat, brass bands, crowd cheering turns to background noise. “Even thought Suyama was better off living a normal life.”

“I’m kind of jealous.” He doesn’t mean to say it. Scrunching the hem of his shirt in balled fists, hoping to stop the words from spilling out. “You seem to know Shouji more than I do.”

“You probably know more than you think.” Mizutani offers a comforting laugh. It sounds a little forced, with how his brows furrowed when he turns to looks at Yuuto. “He talks a lot about you, and he always looks so _soft_ when he does _._ ” Mizutani burrows his face into his knees, lets the fringe of his hair fall over the arms wrapped around them.

Yuuto couldn’t read him, then. Not from his voice, not from the way he curls into himself.

“You were his world.”

 

* * *

 

“But what about you, though?” Yuuto picks up the conversation again like weeks hasn’t passed, disguises the intent to pry in idle musings, simple curiosity in-between drying the dishes.

“Me?” They’ve fallen into a cadence, Mizutani replying from the other side of the room without missing a beat. He gathers tonight’s third portion into plastic containers, the movement more muscle memory by now.

“Did you want to leave too?” _What_ _is_ _your relationship with Shouji like?_

“I’m here to keep you safe,” he says, resolute. “He wouldn’t have needed me if one of his clients didn’t give him hell, right before he wanted out.”

“Then, that really means he’s–”  

“I trust him. I’d follow him everywhere.” _You should trust him, too._

 

* * *

 

How could he, when summer sheds into autumn, drifts into winter. He opens another food container, lets the contents spill into his rubbish bin.

 

* * *

 

How could he, when traces of him are starting to fall apart, shoved away with the food he still leaves out for him at the end of the day. He sees Mizutani’s new potted cactus out by the windowsill more than he sees Suyama’s teacup out on the counter, a circlet of tea stains on the wooden surface.

 

* * *

 

How could he, when the man who still remembers where Yuuto hides his spare key, shuffles sheepishly into the living area – a smile on his face that’s calmer than he has any right to be, a lot less apologetic than he ought to be. A broken left arm, a pot of saintpaulia cradled in his right.

 

“I’m home,” he says, setting the flowers down on the counter. Nothing out of the ordinary, the nonchalance of a man coming home from his usual business trip. A white dress shirt, slightly wrinkled after a full day of work. A tie loosened around his collar on the walk back from the station. A little souvenir as a gift, for his loved ones back at home. “Did you wait long?”

 

* * *

 

Yuuto’s poppies are in full bloom by the windowsill, a flare from the sunlight catches at the glass. A collection of various cacti in multi-coloured pots start to build at the corner of the room. On the coffee table or on the counter, there’s always a cup of tea out, carrying the scent of peppermint and rosemary.

To tired, winded _‘I’m home’_ s, there’s always a cheerful reply of _‘Welcome home.’_

Dinner in Room 219 Chateau Osmanthus always ends with three rice bowls soaking in the sink, leftovers neatly portioned into three, for tomorrow’s bento box.

 


End file.
